I’m keen to share my Galapagos adventures since I went without the net for 8 days, but I still haven’t finished my time in Quito yet! Never fear, my time in Quito was coming to an end.

I finally got a chance to take the free daily walking tour the hostel put on and check out some local (read: budget) sights. First stop, the markets across the road! I made a mental note to come back there for lunch and to grab local fruits to try out later. We wandered up/down hill, checking out the Presidential palace, and learnt some history, especially why the current president decided (more like refused) to live there. Turns out a bunch of prior presidents had a habit of being murdered there. I can see why Quito was named a UNESCO historical city, all the old buildings and churches were beautiful, you could see the Spanish influence. The tour was pretty insightful and I was grateful the guide was heading back to the hostel after because I was lost as fuck. Whilst I didn’t end up having lunch at the market (my choice would’ve been the sea bass fillet with accompanying cerviche which was highly recommended by the Belgian guy I drank with a few nights ago), I did pick up an armful of local passionfruit and a yellow dragonfruit. Alas, I never got a chance to eat the dragonfruit, but I’ll get to that later. I did however try some local berry concoction that would pair really well with vodka…

I decided not to have lunch to brace myself for the food tour later that evening, and boy that did t disappoint! Being useless yet again, I failed to get many snaps of all the food we tried, but damn they were good. Everything from a warm berry drink, to a delicious fermented hot corn drink that reminded me of malted milk. 3 different types of empanadas, a chicken stew, deep fried goodies and stuff smothered in sugar. Ecuadorians like their food accompanied with sugar, then downed in more sugar, but it was amazing. The guide was the same guy from the walking tour, and he made us try some mystery meat which turned out to be grilled intestines, but OMG, whatever spices it was marinating in, made it delicious. The tour ended in the Bohemian quarters, La Ronda. The story goes, when the Spanish sailors used to come to town, they’d go to that area to serenade the beautiful women that would hangout on the balconies, and if the sailors were terrible singers/musicians, the ladies would pour water on them. Annoyed parents would empty chamber pots on wannabe suitors. I can’t remember if the sailors or the women were referred to as ‘rondas’ but that’s how the name of the area came about. People would flock to the place to see ‘la rondas’, the rondas. It’s a beautiful street full of historic old buildings. It’s there I sampled a massive, bigger than my head, deep friend empanada and a local, super potent mulled orange-cinnamon cocktail, canelazo. The healthy pour of cane rum certainly hit hard. 

Saturday morning saw me head back up the hill to meet the tour bus for a day trip to Otovalo markets. Pit stopping at a local town famed for their bichoccio, a type of cakey-biscuit eaten with a local soft cheese, similar to mozzarella wrapped in a local leaf much like a banana leaf, and the most amazing dulce leche (heavenly caramel!). It was a shame I wasn’t feeling particularly great that morning, but I did manage to scoff down all the dulce leche… Another visit to an alternative equator site that was a NFP that looked more at the archeological history of the equator and a pit stop at a local store that made Panama hat (and a little about why they’re called Panama hats even though they come from Ecuador). The hat store conveniently sat next to an amazing lookout with views of another crater and dormant volcano.

Otovalo markets themselves were a bit meh. Don’t get me wrong, it was lively and full of colour, but it was clearly targeted towards tourists and well, I thought the location would’ve been a bit more impressive, it was just in a parking lot. Still, it was pleasant to walk through and see all the wares on offer. Pretty sure I was the only person who didn’t buy anything. Well no, that’s a lie, I bought freshly made lemonade, which was amazing and refreshing. I ended back at the hostel pretty late as the tour ran over, but I was relieved to find the snoring guy had finally moved on! Huzzah! I would get a decent night’s sleep before my 8am flight to the Galapagos the next morning. While I was extremely tempted to partake in the pub crawl organised for that Saturday night, I decided to be good and packed my bag and hit bed early. 

Hitting the airport at 5.45am was a bit of a pain, but remember those passionfruits I bought earlier? Well I finally had a chance to try them. If only I had a chance to eat them earlier! They were fucking amazing, I’m usually not a fan of passionfruit because it can be quite tart and sour, but these were nothing but sweet and juicy. I managed to scoff 3 out of 4 of them before I had to get rid of them to put my bags through quarantine. Sadly, they check your bags (albeit not the most rigidly) for fruit/seeds, so I had to ditch the dragonfruit too. But I was then off to the amazing Galapagos! And man, THAT was an amazing trip….